Mar 24, 2009 04:49
I have a friend who's birthday is the 2nd. He is creative and intelligent and so full of self-loathing that he is only a handful of steps away from self-destruction. Fortunately it isn't to the point that it controls him every moment of the day. No, he is still at the stage that he can perform more or less normally for short periods of time. It is only when things are going really well that he feels compelled to sabotage his life. If he has a good job he has to go a little farther out on the fringe, or take offense because his boss disagrees with him on some subject and go all passive aggressive until he gets fired. If he is in a healthy relationship his belief that he doesn't deserve to be happy forces him to make a mountain out of a molehill and bring the relationship down.
It isn't that he wants to be alone. No he hates his own company so much that he must constantly fill his time with some form of mindless diversion. One of his problems is that he doesn't believe that he deserves to be happy. The concept came from one of his parents, probably his father. He's done everything he thinks he can to divest himself of his father's influence, but his father's shadow hangs over every decision he makes.
One of his other problems is that he has a list of things that he thinks he should believe, and he constantly compares this to the list of things that he actually believes and comes up short. I've seen other people do this, usually women. In their case they think they should be hard edged feminists and discover that the have a traditional value or two and hate themselves for what they perceive as a weakness. The source may be different for my friend, but the mechanics are the same. He thinks he should be this grand activist, but the reality is that he doesn't always feel what he thinks he should feel, and hates himself for his weakness.
I guess I've gotten to the point in my life that I am comfortable with the facts that I believe what I believe and feel what I feel and I need no excuse or justification for either. Yes that means that sometimes I resent my father because I have to take care of him. I still love him, but I remember when my life was my own and I enjoyed that. Still, I do what I consider the right thing, and forgive myself for feeling a bit selfish.
I wish that my friend could find his own measure of forgiveness and acceptance. No one deserves to live in the realm he chooses, but he is the only one who can change his course. I wonder whether he will reach his limit of self-loathing and finally find his own forgiveness before his self-loathing finds its ultimate expression. It is a race with pretty heavy stakes. I'm not saying that his self-induced torture should last any longer than it has. I'm just hoping that he opts for the less final end to his suffering. The world would be a better place with that version of him present.
S-